Wednesday, November 30, 2011

China Water-Cooler Chatter

After close to 10 years of working (and living) in
China, here are common, office chatter topics which I've either heard in passing or had the pleasure to partake in the conversation.

Fascination with Homes

Rent or buy

The size of your home

The price of your home

Apartments are a rage in China. I’d call it a cultural obsession. The way some folks ask me about my dwelling space,
size, price - I thought they were looking to move in with me!

Whereas where I’m from,
folks can go decades before they buy, there is a mad race here to own an
apartment. It almost seems like an
entitlement for the 20-something crowd to think they are due an apartment.

Home discussion is always an
icebreaker in China and for the most part, perfectly normal conversation
topic.

Food and Food Intake Method (plus the occasional
“outtake”)

Who cooks in your house?

Can you take spicy
(food)? And it is "take", ie can you bear it?

I have diarrhea.

There is a pickiness here
about food, that I cannot quite put my finger on. I’ll eat anywhere and pretty much eat anything. Most folk here seem picky about their
food and then it can even extend to another level of “whose cooking are you
brave enough to endure?” Granted,
there is a large mistrust here of restaurants; the food safety, 2nd hand oil thing, etc… It
seems in a normal home here, whoever controls the wok, has the power.

Then, diarrhea, is not
something you keep to yourself. If
you got it, folks don’t mind telling it, hearing about it, how you got it, where from and then
there is a lot of chin music on who can brave “spicy” food and from what
region. I’d honestly had never
thought that much about it…

Getting Voted off the Island

I trust them, I don’t trust
them.

Maybe it’s because of
history, maybe folks just like the Survivor model in their office, but for some
reason, I hear trust mentioned a lot?
Why, I’ve asked myself? Is
there something going on that I should know about? Is some of the team passing nuclear secrets to each
other? Is there a larger
conspiracy transpiring and manufacturing promotional items is just the cover
up?

I say that tongue-in-cheek,
but there is an extreme distrust of one another here; a fear that someone will rat out the other – although I’ve
never uncovered what that dirty secret is and I bet dollars to doughnuts they
also don’t know. In the West we
tend trust people until they’ve given us a reason to do otherwise, here it is
the opposite. Whether it’s the VP
or the lady that sweeps the office, there is a watchful system here and just be
sure you don’t get voted off the island, a la Survivor.

Price Fascination

How much you get paid

The amount of your bonus

The cost of “x”, how much
did you pay for “x”?

How much the boss pays for
their “x”.

Like nowhere else in the
world, there is a fascination here of what something costs. Whether you bought a new pair of Li Ning’s
or a BMW…spill the beans.

What did you pay? Typically after you tell someone what
you paid, the normal response is for everyone to make that tongue clicking sound
and shake his or her head and tell you, “too expensive”.

Also if the staff doesn’t
share with one another the amount of their bonus, compensation, etc.. they are
considered, “not a team player”.
There was one small girl, probably shorter than 5’3 who was bullying all
others to tell her their bonus. I
guess if they didn’t squeal she was going to vote them off at the next tribal
council? (back to the above “trust” concept).

Asking you how much money you make is not something folks
are shy about because most will willing offer the info on how much they are making.

Many people in companies
here have this “us vs. them” mentality when it comes to employee and management
– obviously a sprig from the communist root. The worker has to band together against the evil oppressive
class.

And if you are in a position
of authority, knowing what you pay for things is the juiciest, hot commodity
going today. I think it’s from a
developing country having lack of hobbies, thus leading to little random bits
of knowledge being something people want to scoop up. When I heard the team discussing how much my shoes cost, I
got my hopes up thinking they were going to kick in a buy me a birthday present
(ie knowing what quality level I expect, perhaps a better pair of shoes) but it turns out they were just
shootin’ the bull.

I realize a lot these
chatter points stem from history, welfare (cost of everything being an
obsession) and culture. It’s
been a blast working in China and being a foreigner in China, having Chinese
colleagues and managing a team has been a humungous life-growth mechanism. Moving out of your home country and working
with others changes your views on just about everything. Be sure to enjoy the ride whilst it’s
happening.